Federal Dental Aid???

According to an article written in the New York times on May 1st, 2012, there has been an upraise of people arriving at the ER with complaints of severe pain from dental disease.  Several of these patients are requesting pain medication to dull their symptoms, leaving ER doctors scrambling to decide the best way to treat these common dilemmas.

The problem is not that the ER doctors do not believe that the patients are in pain or that they need to be treated, the question is “how” to treat the patients.  Most patients are given antibiotics and pain medication and sent home only to return later with more severe symptoms.  It is difficult for a medical doctor to properly diagnose dental disease, so instead they end up treating the symptoms.  One must see a dentist in order to properly diagnose and treat dental disease.

Unfortunately, there is a bigger problem at large.  State ran dental programs vary too widely and the primary focus is on children.    I am confident, that our country would benefit greatly from a blanketed Federal Dental Aid Program.

sites:

American Dental Association Comment on the New York Times story, ‘E.R. Doctors Face
Dilemma on Painkillers’

www.ada.org

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